Why Musicians are Forced to Sell Out

[MacDaddy]

 

[yorks5stringer]

Depressing and true

[Bassfinger]

They could always sleep with Simon Cowell.

[AndyTravis]

1 hour ago, Bassfinger said:

They could always sleep with Simon Cowell.

i did that. He just didn’t call me back.

[funkgod]

 

only lightly related, but i love this , do not do dodgy huey covers,,, he will get ya 🙂

 

Edited October 19, 2021 by funkgod

[Happy Jack]

21 hours ago, MacDaddy said:

 

 

Well now, maybe this is true (or at least partially true) for all the wannabee multi-millionaire rock stars out there, but are there many such delusional people here on Basschat?

 

I make 100% of my music-related income from touring, and I will tour anywhere so long as I get to sleep in my own bed that night. I tour all the way from Wendover to Woking, from Winnersh to Ware. I have no endorsements or sponsorships, and I hardly ever get called upon to open supermarkets. When we sell our next three Damo & The Dynamites CDs our total sales will have at last covered the production costs of that CD.

 

I don't find myself lying awake at night, fuming over how 'unfair' it all is ... I'm too busy enjoying the ride.

 

[funkgod]

1 hour ago, Happy Jack said:

 

Well now, maybe this is true (or at least partially true) for all the wannabee multi-millionaire rock stars out there, but are there many such delusional people here on Basschat?

 

I make 100% of my music-related income from touring, and I will tour anywhere so long as I get to sleep in my own bed that night. I tour all the way from Wendover to Woking, from Winnersh to Ware. I have no endorsements or sponsorships, and I hardly ever get called upon to open supermarkets. When we sell our next three Damo & The Dynamites CDs our total sales will have at last covered the production costs of that CD.

 

I don't find myself lying awake at night, fuming over how 'unfair' it all is ... I'm too busy enjoying the ride.

 

Yep, anything you get out of something is directly proportional to what you put into it,

only in music its not, its dam hard work to get something out of it, and the pay is definitely not proportional

but at least we like doing it.

Now.. as said in the comments in the vid, i hear loads of musicians going on about how they are putting music on youtube and not getting anything out of it ! HELLO wake up, its your own  fault for putting your tracks on there in the first place.

what did you think was going to happen ? people are going to down load it, free, read youtubes agreements to which you agreed to

when you put them tracks up, ( now i know this will open a whole new argument, and i also know these statements do not apply to everyone,) the only people that make money from that download, ( im talking joe blogs in his bedroom studio and unknown bands and so on) is youtube and all the people you agreed to let it be used, ie ebay "partners"

so ok i get im just shouting out here, but i have said it so many times...

there is a better way !

We need to use THEM "youtube" as advertisement for us ONLY and NOT let them use you.

How do we do this ?

Anyone serious enough about their music will or should have there own site.

if not, then get one.

Put your songs for sale on your own site as down loads for a fee you think is fair for it.

then on youtube just download ( or is it upload) a part of your song with a link to your site where they can down load it for the fee you attached to it and scoot about other songs you have done, maybe they will download the whole cd.

 

anyway this is how i do it.

and these are Just my thoughts on just that one aspect.

but dont give your songs away for free. UNLESS you want them to be free 🙂

 

Edited October 19, 2021 by funkgod

[ubit]

Many, many years ago I watched a documentary about the Campbell brothers and their famous folk singer dad. The Campbell brothers were of course in UB40. This was in their early days (two albums I think) They said we sing about oppression and injustice. If you ever hear us singing love songs you know we have sold out. I guess they admit they sold out then.

[Happy Jack]

Which particular red, red wine was being oppressed? Or did they mean that the red, red wine had been oppressed from grapes?

 

I think we should be told ...

 

[BigRedX]

On 19/10/2021 at 14:28, funkgod said:

We need to use THEM "youtube" as advertisement for us ONLY and NOT let them use you.

How do we do this ?

Anyone serious enough about their music will or should have there own site.

if not, then get one.

Put your songs for sale on your own site as down loads for a fee you think is fair for it.

then on youtube just download ( or is it upload) a part of your song with a link to your site where they can down load it for the fee you attached to it and scoot about other songs you have done, maybe they will download the whole cd.

 

Have you actually been able to make this strategy work for you?

 

My experience is that people won't buy directly from a band's web site and in fact unless you give then no alternative they won't even visit it. They want to stick with the platforms they know and trust (as a consumer) even if they know that buying or listening this way means less money goes to the artist in question.

 

For my last band, despite the fact that you could buy our CDs/records cheaper, direct from our band website we sold almost nothing that way. People were happier buying downloads or stream the songs from Apple/Amazon/Spotify, and if they did actually want to buy physical product they went to Bandcamp.

Edited October 21, 2021 by BigRedX

[Bassfinger]

Im a musician and I wasn't forced to sell out. None of us are.

 

Instead I made a very reasonable living doing something else, which leaves me free to do exactly as I want as a performer and writer.  Nothing stopping anyone else doing the same.  That way the crumbs I make from music are a pleasant bung, and not something I desperately have to rely upon.

[tegs07]

You could argue that most of us, in every walk of life and every profession “sell out” if by that you mean do stuff as adults that we swore we wouldn’t do as teenagers!

Making a comfortable living playing music is hard enough. If your trying to do it with total integrity and no compromise I’m not sure it’s entirely possible once past the teenage years unless you have another revenue stream.

For full disclosure I’m not a pro musician. It was obvious by the age of 19 that no one would pay good money to listen to my noodling.

Edited October 21, 2021 by tegs07

[ubit]

We definitely sold out. Started a band playing rock and metal ended up playing traditional songs and wagon wheel in pubs. Anything to get a pay day.

[Barking Spiders]

The music industry's always attracted douches out to rip off artists and the big record labels always helped themselves to most of the pie, leaving crumbs for the artist. Which is why Prince did pretty much everything and came up with all that symbol/slave stuff. So who can blame artists for selling out? If music was my main/only source of income I'd do pretty much anything this side of legal to keep a roof over my head.